Bull City businesses push forward despite power outages

Countless Bull City businesses are still in the dark, more than 24 hours after severe storms passed through the area.

In the Brightleaf section of Durham, many stores and restaurants along Main St. remained without power, forced to close while they awaited word from Duke Energy.

"It's actually really hard to recoup a day like this. And for a small business, it is. I mean, it's significant," said Kristen Commons, who owns The Retreat, just off Main St.

Her massage and skin care business was forced to close early Tuesday, cancel all appointments Wednesday, and prepare to do the same Thursday.

"Yesterday afternoon and probably the full day today and even possibly tomorrow morning, we're out probably over 50 appointments. And so it's considerable as far as our small business is concerned," Commons said.

She said it means eight or nine employees are temporarily out of work, and the missed appointments mean thousands of dollars lost.

In North Durham, garden center Stone Brothers & Byrd is doing what they can to stay open despite the power outages.

"Well, it's frustrating, most of all for my customers, above anybody else. But we're here and we're here to do business," said owner George Davis.

Davis said they've been here before, and have a model for pushing ahead.

"We're here. We don't have the air conditioning, we don't have lights, but we can do business and we know how to do the business," he said.

Duke Energy told ABC11 they hope to have the power back online by midnight.

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